Thursday, 27 January 2011

I carry the weight of the world on my back.
Shielded from the glare of the blue sky
I think
I devise new ways of creating wealth
I sell the land back to its people
Their own oil, water, natural gas.
It adds to this weight my back shares.
It has grown heavy since we took it from Stonehenge;
The weather it shelters us from
Has rounded its edges.
I fear it might one day
Skim the ocean and I
Have no assets on the sea-bed.

II

I do not think
Like he who also shoulders responsibility.
I straighten my back,
Keep one hand planted firmly on the ground.
I build there,
My factories are not monuments
Though they will stand forever.
Diversify, accumulate,
Keep one hand free to speculate.
I fear only that should I ever try to stand
My back might break.

III

I keep these two in check.
I scan the lost horizon,
Keep the wheels turning,
Give a little here,
Take a lot there,
Never let the workers think we do not care.
I fear these two
Might one day let the pebble crash,
But when that happens
I'll be far away.

Lower foreground woman I

They're up there
And we're down here.
He isn't looking
But I feel his eyes.
I have not smiled for thirty years.
They've taken everything I never had.
They even own myself.

Lower foreground woman II

I follow you
But know by my flowing hair
A wind is blowing;
It is coming our way.
No-one has
Nor will ever own
Me.

Wednesday, 26 January 2011

That last afternoon
we went out in the car
slowly up the hill we call the Low,
wary of a traffic-shy horse.
We found ourselves dead-ended
where roads led only to muddy farms,
dingy council estates or the moor's edge.
Up the top of a hill we call the Down
we stopped at the cafe
for tea and toast and brocolli soup,
then edged our dull way home
across the mist-marooned moors.

Sunday, 23 January 2011

There is a car-park
at the back of Bennachie
and a log-cabin loo in preservative green.
Forestry Commission firs populate the slopes -
these trees the new colonisers
of ground where men eked a bare living
before the lairds divided the land.

The cone of the Mither Tap
oversees all Buchan and Strathbogie,
this Iron Age fort now tumble-down scree
- granite lintels weather slowly.

Twenty-nine bullocks are daily led
to pasture under the mountain's side -
the thirtieth loner, sufferer of sunburn,
is left companion to the tractor.

A road leads by "My Lord's Throat"
where the larynxed Don is littered
by stone teeth that seem to be
as old as Bennachie itself.

Wednesday, 19 January 2011

That Great Roar -
the old artery
which sustained the town
when coachmen would choose Inns
for the merits of their stables -
passes by this neglected,
southern toe-end of Lincolnshire,
separates it from old-pal Rutland
now drowned in Leicestershire.

Left in Burghley's tourist-shadow
it might have become
a small-time town where no-one laughs
where life is a serious business.

Landlords of those same Inns
now serve bar-meals in yards
which have become beer-gardens
They extend the same welcome
recognising that their visitors
must choose to come this way.

Sunday, 16 January 2011

Bedraggled daffodils line the lanes
unnerved by April snows.
Only the curlew crying on the fell,
the short-eared owl stationed on his post,
know that summer still will come
as surely as the growing lambs will go.

By the lake where a myriad mosquitos hum,
only the bravest rabbit boasts
of the ability to foretell
how strong will be the wind's abuse,
how many elms will no longer grow
to offer shelter to the homeless crow.

Since the non-farmer
couldn't milk the pigs
he fed three in the morning
went tractor-riding — better far
than all the rides in Legoland.

For breakfast he discovered
the culinary delight
of sandwiches of cheese
topped by squelchy marmalade.

His football-crazy brother
kicked two around the lawn
and in and out the flower beds
went happily to his own.

Both were driven
along the uncrowded roads
through Bedsted, Grurup, Hurup, No,
to castles, deserted North Sea beaches,
picnicking on an airport car park
before flying in a four-seater Cessna
over velvety fields and farms displaying
the Danish flag on their individual poles.

Daddy rolled up his trousers,
paddled in the seaweed stream
sandal-footed at Binderup Strand.

Mummy met the lace-maker of Tønder
and at Sønderborg Slot was treated
to a rare private showing
of Rogoczy's vast collection
hidden from the light to prevent browning.

Friday, 14 January 2011

Between calls I listen
to the punk performance poet
sucking up to Susie on her birthday.
The John Virgo sound-alike
punches a haiku
that judders in the pocket jaws,
rattles a 134
with a non-stop verbal chant
culminating on the ninth floor of a block of flats
in an unfinished pink.
Susie probes his romantic inclinations,
keeps the unembarrassing interview on cue.

Friday, 7 January 2011

Orgasm approaching
Rumbles of distant traffic
Screech of brakes
where the two roads meet
at the "Cock & Crown"
Patter of elephants on the landing
Sheets quickly hoisted
Movement locked in a still embrace
"Daddy, it's time to get up! Mummy!"
"Thank you, son!"
As innocence departs downstairs
daddy is already up - mummy.

Thursday, 6 January 2011

Nutty brown wholemeal,
wheat germ, standard white,
supermarket pre-wrapped cardboard,
stale wedding reception left-overs;
it's all the same
to Bewick swans and Mallard ducks
fighting for every thrown crumb,
quacking and screeching
at upstart gulls and starlings
keen to encroach on banks.
Only when the last bag of bread
is emptied,
the last child departed,
will they retire
fat to the island.

Sunday, 2 January 2011

(On Thursday November 20th, 1986 the search resumed on Saddleworth Moor for victims of the "Moors Murders")

I

Hattersley has a quiet look today
swept by the showers and the south-west wind
people wait at bus-stops still joking,
but at the Catholics' coffee-morning
the talk is of Ian and Myra,
of bitter resentment and a little hope
for the unrest of twenty-one years
will not lie down so easily.

Saturday, 1 January 2011

Damn the Sirius Cybernetics' Corporation,
there are things not said in the Hitchhiker's Guide.
I need some proper elaboration -
the Nutrimat seems to deliver pesticide!
I'm sure that my brain is about to collide
unless the mind in my head is an absentee.
There's one thing I've craved since I started this ride
- all that I want is a decent cup of tea !

Parts of the Universe defy exploration
but even Zaphod Beeblebrox won't know where to hide
when the Vogon's decide on redecoration
to fill all the lakes with hydrogen chloride -
such actions as Marvin could never abide,
but that paranoid android's only a draftee
in whom scatter-brained humans fail to confide
- all that I want is a decent cup of tea !

In Vogon poetry there's no melioration
but unless you appeal to the Captain's pride
the Heart of Gold won't see restoration -
only Bugblatter Beasts can breath carbon monoxide
and they actually thrive on cyanide.
Once I was an Infocom devotee
but now I'm considering suicide
- all that I want is a decent cup of tea !

ENVOI

Ford, I've followed you all the way across the great divide.
I realise there can be no guarantee
but seven sixes is the answer I'll provide
- all that I want is a decent cup of tea !